Ghosts of Christmas Past #1
There’s an annoying little thing that happens as you get older- Christmas loses its “oomph”, as it were. Sure, now I can drink heavily and not sit at the kid’s table, but there’s still something gone for me- not getting those great toys of yesteryear.
Today, we’re going to take a look at something I got nineteen years ago this Christmas- the Masters of the Universe Snake Mountain.
I got my NES that same year. I’m not going to lie and say I ignored it for my Snake Mountain. I got right into Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt, but I did tire of having my ass handed to me by Goombas and having that fucking dog laughing at me when I missed a duck. So I finally got around to Snake Mountain. The box was huge to my seven year old self. The painting gracing the front of the box was awesome. They don’t make packaging like this anymore, let me tell you. It was dark, and Skeletor clearly had the upper hand over He-Man and poor Man-At-Arms, who was chained up to the side of the mountain. The face on the mountain declared “I am the voice of Snake Mountain” telling you that this thing had a microphone on it that distorted your squeaky voice into something still squeaky, yet possibly fearsome on some level to a younger sibling. Of course, the wire that powered the microphone was extremely thin, and I don’t think that lasted a week. Then, the wolf’s head that housed the device split open, and surely enough, that was the end of that. Then there were the plastic chains on the front of the playset- those were the next to break. But there were still plenty of other traps on it that resisted breaking. The trap door on the top of the playset, for instance. It took some time to break that latch at the bottom, but it was functional for some time. Alas, like all well-used toys, pretty much everything broke, and you ended up just using the castle shell to store figures inside.
I suppose this is part of the reason people have kids- to have that feeling again.
Today, we’re going to take a look at something I got nineteen years ago this Christmas- the Masters of the Universe Snake Mountain.
I got my NES that same year. I’m not going to lie and say I ignored it for my Snake Mountain. I got right into Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt, but I did tire of having my ass handed to me by Goombas and having that fucking dog laughing at me when I missed a duck. So I finally got around to Snake Mountain. The box was huge to my seven year old self. The painting gracing the front of the box was awesome. They don’t make packaging like this anymore, let me tell you. It was dark, and Skeletor clearly had the upper hand over He-Man and poor Man-At-Arms, who was chained up to the side of the mountain. The face on the mountain declared “I am the voice of Snake Mountain” telling you that this thing had a microphone on it that distorted your squeaky voice into something still squeaky, yet possibly fearsome on some level to a younger sibling. Of course, the wire that powered the microphone was extremely thin, and I don’t think that lasted a week. Then, the wolf’s head that housed the device split open, and surely enough, that was the end of that. Then there were the plastic chains on the front of the playset- those were the next to break. But there were still plenty of other traps on it that resisted breaking. The trap door on the top of the playset, for instance. It took some time to break that latch at the bottom, but it was functional for some time. Alas, like all well-used toys, pretty much everything broke, and you ended up just using the castle shell to store figures inside.
I suppose this is part of the reason people have kids- to have that feeling again.
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